Pretty Little Girl
by Meowiegirl
Summary: Shizuka has never been completely sane, but when she finally snaps, who was at fault: her, or two evil sprits from another world. Blood, gore, death, and a lime. OtogiShizuka, HondaShizuka, SetoJou, MarikBakura, MalikRyou. Sort of a prequel to "Welcome to


Pretty Little Girl  
  


A/N: Well, here's a Yu-Gi-Oh psychological-horrorfic that I couldn't get out of my head. It's a side story to that Hotel California songfic I wrote, but you don't need to read that to understand this. I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, sadly... T-T  
  


Notes:  
  


I'm using the original, not the dub, names, and I'm referring to Yami Bakura as Bakura and Yami Malik as Marik.  
  


'Blah blah blah'-------- thoughts  
  


(Blah blah blah) --------- flashes to a supernatural reality that is also inside Shizuka's mind  
  


Pairings are as follows: Honda/Shizuka, Otogi/Shizuka, Seto/Jou, Marik/Bakura, Malik/Ryou.  
  


Be warned: There is considerable blood and gore here.  
  


______________________________________________________________________________  
  


"Go away, Otogi!"  
  


"No, Honda, I'm going steady with her!"  
  


"Then why's she dating me?"  
  


"You've just been going with her for a week!"  
  


The two sometimes-friends walked side-by-side down the street to Shizuka's house, arguing the whole way. Shizuka was the object of both their affections, and they were both the objects of her affection. You see, she could not choose. She was attracted to how Honda cared for her and was so kind to her, but sometimes, she found it suffocating. That was when she ran to Otogi. She loved his recklessness, that daring smile-smirk that would grace his face when he was about to do something dangerous like ride his motorcycle off a pier and onto a big boat in the harbor.  
  


"Shove off!," Otogi spat at Honda, punching at him but hitting the air next to his head.  
  


"She loves me more and you know it!," Honda growled.  
  


"Then why was she running to me last weekend, asking me to go to dinner with her? Why am I always the one who takes her to baseball games and movies and motorcycle tournaments?!"  
  


"She's more delicate than other girls her age, Otogi. Besides, I'm actually -in- the motorcycle tournaments!"  
  


"So am I, and I bring her anyway!"  
  


Shizuka was considered delicate by most because not only had she been blind for most of her life, but she was not completely sane. Teetering on the brink of insanity would have been a better description, but other than occasionally lashing out in seemingly random fits of rage, and having hallucinations, she was a sweet girl.  
  


The two boys found themselves on the doorstep of Shizuka's house not a moment later. The windows were dark, and it was obvious that not a single light was on in the house. Odd, since it was a nice summer evening, and the sun had only gone down an hour ago. Maybe she was out.   
  


"Come on, Otogi, go the hell away, she's not there," Honda muttered.  
  


"You just want me out of here!," Otogi answered heatedly.  
  


"Yeah, I do. What're you gonna do about it?"  
  


"Fight you."  
  


Otogi, after a brief scuffle with Honda during which the brown-haired boy was knocked down, rang the doorbell, and Shizuka answered.  
  


"Hello!," she chirped.  
  


Shizuka had a tiny, high-pitched voice that was like a little girl's. Often, she was slightly childish in her naivety and sweetness, but she could be sophisticated when she wanted to be.  
  


"Hey, baby," Otogi laughed, and slipped his arm around Shizuka's waist.   
  


Honda, who was getting up, glared at Otogi.  
  


"She's mine," he growled at his black-haired rival.  
  


"Oh, my," Shizuka sighed. "Both of you, come inside. I...had an episode...this morning and I haven't had much of a chance to clean my house, but come in."  
  


The two boys followed her into the house, and they sat down on the couch while she went to get drinks. When she came back out a moment later, everyone got down to business. Otogi told her why the two boys were there: they were tired of sharing a girlfriend.   
  


"Well," Shizuka announced, "I guess I have to choose, then."  
  


The boys glared at each other for a long time, and then Honda spoke.  
  


"Baby, I love you. I'll protect you," he told her.  
  


Otogi said, "You know he's suffocating you, Shizuka-chan. You told me so yourself, last night. I treat you like a normal girl!"  
  


The arguing went on for a long time, with Shizuka looking back and forth between her two suitors. Tears formed in the girl's eyes, and then, Otogi, who had been standing facing Honda and screaming at him, suddenly turned to Shizuka and bent on one knee.  
  


Taking out a ring from his pocket, Otogi asked, "Shizuka, babe, will you marry me?"   
  


Shizuka burst out sobbing and ran into the kitchen, slamming the door behind her.  
  


"Shizuka! What's wrong?," Otogi called, knocking on the kitchen door.  
  


"I have to think!," she screamed back at him. "I need to be alone!"  
  


Honda shrugged at Otogi, and the black-haired boy sat down next to his sometimes-friend as if they weren't fighting over a girl, and started discussing a new model of motorcycle.   
  


Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Shizuka paced back and forth like a caged animal. She had no idea what to do. Which should she choose? She loved them both!  
  


'End it, kid,' came Shizuka's inner voice. 'Tell them you need some time apart from them both. It's not healthy for you to be stressing out like this.'  
  


"NO!," Shizuka barked, and banged a small and delicate but surprisingly strong fist down on the table.  
  


The pink plastic cup on the table rattled, as did a vase of fake flowers and a knife.  
  


"Shizuka! Are you okay in there?," Honda called.  
  


"LEAVE ME ALONE!," she screamed in reply.  
  


There was something primal and guttural about the scream.  
  


'You have to choose, kid,' her inner voice came bubbling up. 'One of them or neither. You can't love them both, kid, and you know it. It's all or nothing.'  
  


Shizuka wondered who that jaded little voice in her head was. It sounded like Jounouchi would if he was a girl... Was he a girl? Did she have a sister instead of a brother? Was anything as it seemed now?  
  


'Both or nothing,' the voice taunted again. 'Both or nothing.'  
  
  
  
Shizuka began to cry. She loved them both, honestly she did, but to choose...! That was the most vile torment that she could think of.  
  


'You gotta end it now, kid,' came girl-Jou's voice in her head.  
  


A silly, high-pitched, childish giggle filled the room. Her brother, a girl, indeed! She was laughing through her tears and the full moon, red tonight, was visible through the window, but dark storm clouds were quickly closing in, smothering the light.  
  


(Why am I here? Where am I? I want out, I need to escape! Want to go home. Is this home?)  
  


'You gotta choose, gotta end it now,' there was that little barely-there whisper again. 'Gotta end it, gotta end it, gotta end it, end it, end it now, end it, end it, end it end it end it end it end it end it enditenditenditenditendit...'  
  


Something seemed to snap in Shizuka's head. A connection- the words and the knife sitting on the kitchen table. And then, her eyes went dull and listless. She grabbed the knife, keeping it out of view behind her back, and walked calmly back into the living room.  
  


"I'll end it, if that's what they want," she murmured, "Oh, yes, I'll end it."  
  


"Alright," she said in that child's voice, "I made my decision. I've decided to..."  
  


'...enditenditenditenditenditenditenditenditenditenditendit...'  
  


(Wind whistling through a wasteland. Emptiness. Red sky, painted like blood. Fire on the horizon or is that a sun? Barren. Sand, that's all.)  
  


She drew a little closer to the two on the couch.  
  


"...finish this all," she completed her sentence, grinning ferally.  
  


"What?," Otogi asked.  
  


He was scared. Surely Shizuka wasn't going to break up with him! He loved her so dearly. Suddenly, a glint of silver metal- a knife!  
  


The color drained from Otogi's face. Was she going to kill herself?  
  


Honda nudged the black-haired boy, "What's wrong?"  
  


Otogi whispered back, "She's got a kni-"  
  


A short gasp of surprise, and then Otogi looked down to see the handle of the knife sticking out of his chest.  
  


"Why?," he whispered, reaching towards the girl he loved.  
  


She didn't respond verbally. Instead, she withdrew the knife and plunged it into Otogi again and again, spattering crimson lifeblood everywhere. When he was dead, she moved on to Honda.  
  


(Up ahead, a tree. Dead tree. What is on it? No, oh no, I can see now. No. Ryou and Malik, and they're dead. Throats slit, blood pooled around them, they're growing cold already.)  
  


Screams filled the night as the unwitting little pawn did her work.  
  


***  
  


(Bakura advanced on Seto, knife drawn, teeth bared in an evil grin.  
  


"You're mine," he growled.  
  


Seto didn't care, couldn't care. How could he care when he'd just seen two of his best friends hanging from a tree, dead for hours with their delicate throats slit? He looked back towards the tree with glazed half-lidded eyes, inviting death. Welcoming it. Wanting it, like a lover.  
  


Bakura cut Seto's blue cotton pyjama top vertically with an ancient Egyptian dagger, causing it to fall off of the eighteen-year-old's lean form.  
  


"So beautiful," Bakura whispered and laughed softly. "Too bad you're going to die.")  
  


As Bakura traced designs on Seto's chest with the dagger, his whole world seemed to dissolve and crumble around him, and he was looking up into Jou's tired brown eyes. After looking around a bit, Seto realized that they were curled up together in Seto's bed, and judging from the digital clock, it was in the small hours of the morning and everything had been a dream. It was a dream that he'd been having ever since he could remember, but they'd always been slightly different, as if someone was toying with him. And Seto did not like to be toyed with.   
  


But it had just been a nightmare... Right?  
  


"Unh...Seto? Phone," Jou mumbled, still mostly asleep.  
  


The phone was within reach of Seto's side of the bed, since the CEO had tripped the previous day and badly wrenched his ankle, but insisted on working from his bed.  
  


"'Ello?," Seto yawned into the reciever.  
  
  
  
"Seto! Oh, God, Seto!," it was Jou's sister Shizuka, and she was frantic. "You- you have to come over as soon as you can. Jou as well."  
  


The poor girl was terrified.  
  


"Why?," Seto asked, afraid that something had happened to the girl who was like a sister to him.  
  


"The- the blood... It won't come off my hands! I try and try, but it doesn't- it won't- Oh, Seto, their blood! It's all over my hands, all over me, all over my living room!," the scared teenager shrieked.  
  


Seto promised that he would come over, and then gently shook Jou awake.  
  


"Something's wrong with Shizuka," Seto explained, and Jou woke up almost instantly.  
  


The phone call had been all it took for Seto to forget about the light scratches on his chest and the fact that he was no longer wearing his pyjama top.   
  


The two of them made their way to Seto's car, Seto leaning on Jou's shoulder for support. Jou drove, speeding along as he usually did. They thought Mokuba was asleep in his room, but he was watching from his window as they left.  
  


"Be safe, niisan," he whispered, pressing his hands to the windowpane. "I know what haunts you, and it will never sleep."  
  


***  
  


When the two young men had reached Shizuka's house, they found the door slightly open, and Shizuka's pale, slightly ill-looking face peeking out. She welcomed them in and they were shocked at what they saw: blood really was everywhere, and it was not just one of the girl's nighttime delusions, like the desert with the red sky and the dead tree had been.  
  


'Just like my dream,' Seto thought with a shiver.  
  


Drying blood coated the walls, chairs, couch, and wooden floor of Shizuka's living room, and still more was spattered liberally over her face, hair, hands, and torso. A bloody knife lay on the floor near the couch, and a trail of the crimson fluid led out of the room.  
  


Suddenly, there was a dull thud behind where Seto was standing, holding onto the wall for support and surveying the scene wide-eyed, his hurt ankle raised off the ground. Jou had fainted, and Seto slowly, painstakingly moved him to Shizuka's guest bedroom. When he returned to the living room, he asked Shizuka what had happened, fearing that she'd been attacked.  
  


The only reply he got was Shizuka singing in a broken, toddlerish voice, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey..."  
  


The police arrived a few seconds later, along with Shizuka's neighbors. Ryou, and Malik arrived about twenty minutes later. Ryou was another friend of Shizuka's. She'd called him in that short bit of time where she was still aware of what was happening around her, and he and his boyfriend Malik had rushed over. Malik had nearly gotten them into accidents twice, he drove so fast. Ironically, if he'd driven a bit more slowly, they would have gotten there earlier; they'd gotten stuck in ditches several times, and had needed to swerve around excessively to avoid hitting homes, trees, passers by, and fellow motorists.  
  


Malik was pulling a sleep-rumpled but worried Ryou along by the wrist, walking up the block to Shizuka's house, and wondering why there was a TV news truck there. When they got to the house, they saw the first of the bodies being wheeled out on stretchers, covered by a white sheet that the blood still managed to seep through. A little bit of spiked brown hair poked out from under it.  
  


Ryou gasped, eyes wide, and buried his head in the crook of Malik's neck. Malik noticed that neither of them had bothered to change into outdoor clothes, but he put that thought from his mind as he tried to comfort the British boy in the pale green sheep pyjamas.  
  


"That's Honda," Ryou said faintly, and Malik confirmed it before softly kissing Ryou on the top of his head.   
  


Twenty minutes before, Seto had been standing in the house, surveying the scene over and over. Something was very wrong with Shizuka, that was for sure. The police had arrived about a minute ago. They seemed to have forgotten that Seto was there, and Mai, who had ended up joining the police force, was trying to calm down Shizuka. Once Shizuka stopped ranting like a lunatic, maybe the truth would come out. The police continued searching, and after fifteen minutes, a young female officer gestured to Shizuka's bedroom.  
  


"We haven't looked in here yet," she called, and got permission to look from a senior officer.  
  


Shizuka broke away from Mai's sisterly, calming assurances, and ran for her bedroom door. She stood in front of it, screaming threats and sounding for all the world like a very little girl.  
  


"NO! You can't go in there!," Shizuka yelled. "You can't 'cos that's my room and I don't want you in there! Go away, now! All of you! I didn't ask you to come here!"   
  


She stomped her foot on the ground for emphasis, and had to be pulled away by three policemen. Meanwhile, the small, dark-haired policewoman that had suggested that Shizuka's room be searched opened the door, and screamed in terror.  
  


Shizuka's room was pink-walled and wooden-floored with a frilly white canopy bed, a vanity table, and many stuffed animals, dolls, and figurines of ballerinas. Light from a flower-painted lamp softly illuminated the room. In one corner, there was fairly small round wooden table that had been painted white with small pink roses around the circumference, and four small wooden chairs painted the same way. A porcelain tea set was on the table. But in stark, morbid contrast to the innocent-looking room, what had once been Honda and Otogi sat, dead of knife wounds, at the table. Shizuka had set the table for three, and a third chair was pulled out, as if Shizuka had meant to join them in their macabre tea party. Dark red blood had been spilled everywhere- on the floor, on the table, on the bed, and even smeared along a wall. One policeman looked into the teacups and nearly vomited.  
  


The teacups were filled with Honda and Otogi's blood.  
  


Seto peered in through the doorway and gasped in horror. He turned and walked as quickly as his hurt ankle would allow to the bedroom that Jou was in. He would probably be awake around now, and if he was, the two of them were getting out of the familiar yet terrifying house. Once Seto was in the sterile white room,   
  


(He's drinking their blood! Oh, God, make it stop! Make him stop! I knew him once, knew you... I knew you both knew you both knew you both knew you both...)  
  


he had to lean on the doorframe for support. He'd felt faint, all of a sudden, and dizzy. He continued to lean on the white walls and some of the furniture for support until he got to where Jou was sleeping. When he reached the bed, he could feel the blood rushing through his own head. Seto's last thought before unconsciousness claimed him was, 'I can't go back to that desert!'  
  


(On the ground beneath the tree, Marik and Bakura made love, their murdered hikaris hanging above them. It was a morbid sight for Seto to behold, and he turned away quickly in embarrassment and horror. The two yamis noticed him standing there, but they finished and dressed slowly, taking their time. They would look at him every so often, judging his reaction, seeing if he would turn back around and look at them.   
  


"Well, it looks like our wonder-boy here just couldn't stay away," Marik laughed darkly, holding Bakura in his arms.  
  


There was a hint of tenderness in the way Marik held Bakura, and the way the white-haired tomb robber looked at Marik. There was love there, and lust.  
  


"Why am I here?," Seto asked. "I should be helping Shizuka! Where am I?"  
  


He was starting to get frantic.  
  


"Ah, Shizuka," Bakura started, "Yes. Our little pawn. She has served Marik and me most beautifully, but now, I'm afraid that her time is over."  
  
  
  
"Pawn?," Seto asked icily, confused.  
  


"Yes, our pawn. She is a wonderful killer, don't you think, Marik?" Marik nodded. "So sweet, so quiet, and yet...so vicious! It's wonderful."  
  


"But why?!"  
  


"Why? It's amusing, my love! It's beautiful, and, my word, we do get bored here. That voice in her head was a nice touch, Marik," Bakura paused to lean up and passionately kiss Marik on the lips, "And it was convenient. She has seen us in her dreams since she was a baby. She was marked in that way, and so are you."  
  


"What? I demand that you tell me what's going on, dammit!"  
  


"It's simple. This is one of an infinite number of realities. Most of us never touch any of those realities, but there are a lucky few who get to. This one is where you go if you die and we want you. And there is no escape."  
  


"What the hell? I'm dead?!"  
  


"No. You and Shizuka can touch this reality, and we, in turn, can call you to us. Any time we want."  
  


Seto tried to run, but he had forgotten about his ankle and he fell painfully. Bakura was sitting in the meager shade of the dead tree now, his shirt off, and he was shooting Marik looks that seemed to say, "Don't take long, I'm getting bored over here" as Marik approached Seto slowly.  
  


"Of course," Marik smirked, "If you die here, you'll just stay. Forever."

Seto glared up at the blonde.

"Yes, save us the trouble, darling," Bakura called mockingly.  
  


The tan-skinned yami unsheathed a dagger from where it had been tied around the leg of his pants as he got closer to Seto.  
  


Seto cursed to himself, and then sighed as Marik's handsome face loomed above his-)  
  


"He's coming around!," Malik shouted, his arm around Ryou's shoulders. "Jou! Seto's coming around!"  
  


Seto looked around, confused. He was outside, lying on a pile of blankets, with Malik and Ryou kneeling beside him. Jou ran over and sat down next to Seto.   
  


"Seto!," Jou grinned, "We thought we were losing you! Oh, thank God, I was so worried."  
  


Seto extended his arms and pulled Jou into an embrace, asking, "What happened?"  
  


Jou pulled away gently after a minute, and knelt beside Seto.  
  


"You apparently fainted," Ryou explained. "About a minute before you woke up, you just stopped breathing, and we were able to save you that time, but then your heartbeat suddenly started to weaken. Then, you woke up, somehow."  
  


"Where are Bakura and Marik?"  
  


"Oh, they're crashing at Isis' house, doing heaven knows what right now."  
  


Seto noticed that Ryou's voice was high and shaking, and then he remembered that Shizuka had killed Otogi and Honda.  
  


"Where's Shizuka?," Seto asked.  
  


Jou swallowed and tried to hold back his tears.  
  


"They arrested her," he said in a small voice, "They arrested my baby sister, and she had no idea what was going on."  
  


"She was such a sweet, pretty little girl," one of the neighbors, an older, motherly woman with grey hair, said, walking over to the friends.  
  


"You knew her? Did she act...odd...before all this?," Jou asked.  
  


"Normal for her," the woman replied, "Shizuka always acted like a little child, and not a bratty one either. She was so kind and innocent!"  
  


The old woman left, tutting to herself and shaking her head.  
  


"Jou!," Seto hissed, pulling on the sleeve of the blonde's T-shirt.  
  


"Ow! What is it?," Jou returned, exasperated.  
  


"Shizuka's innocent."  
  


"Shut up, Seto. You can be so heartless sometimes! I can't believe you would joke about that," Jou muttered coldly.  
  


"Who's joking?"  
  


"Well, you're being a total jerk or you've gone nuts. Not sure which it is, but-"  
  


"Look at my ankle."  
  


Seto pulled up the blankets and the leg of his jeans to reveal his ankle. It was swollen and purplish, and his foot hung limply at an odd angle. A sliver of blood-covered bone poked out, and he couldn't keep from whimpering slightly in pain.  
  


Jou gasped.  
  


"Seto...? My God! Your ankle!," he whispered. "How- What-"  
  


"It is the only evidence of Shizuka's innocence," Seto explained quietly, and he told Jou what had happened.  
  


The young blonde man stared incredulously, replying, "You can't be serious."  
  


"Dammit, Jou, after everything you went through? You were turned into a card, sucked into a virtual world TWICE, turned into a goddamn statue, and you won't believe me?!," Seto nearly shouted.  
  


"I don't know what to believe, koi, and even if I believed you, would anyone else? Come on, think about it! The best we can hope for now is for Shizuka to be found not guilty because of insanity."  
  


Seto knew how hard it was on Jou, and, after going to the hospital to get a cast put on his fractured ankle, hobbled into the kitchen of their house on his crutches and made Jou some hot cocoa. It was his way of apologizing for snapping at him earlier.  
  


Jou was sitting on the light blue couch in the living room, staring into space, when Seto walked in with the hot cocoa and put it on a nearby end table.  
  


"Hey Jou, I made you some cocoa," Seto announced softly.  
  


Jou didn't even move.  
  


"Jou...?," Seto asked, moving so he was looking into Jou's eyes.  
  


"Wha?! Huh?," Jou replied, startled.  
  


"Cocoa," Seto smiled sadly, and gestured to the cooling drink.  
  


"Oh. Thanks."  
  


The blonde reached over, took the cup, and began to drink mechanically. Seto sat down next to him, sighing. He felt so awful- Jou loved hot cocoa, and nothing could cheer him up now, it seemed.  
  
  
  
"Seto?," Jou murmured, slipping his right hand into Seto's left.  
  


"Hmm?," Seto asked, shaken out of a thought.  
  


"If what you said is true..."  
  


"It is."  
  


"Oh."  
  


(Bakura smirked, ran a pale hand through paler hair.  
  


"Bad move, Seto. You've pulled you pretty little lover into this with you," he laughed.  
  


A wind blew. The dead branches and their macabre occupants swayed. The wind sounded like it was hissing or whispering something. Marik sat against the tree's trunk, smiling.)  
  


Tears ran down Jou's face. It was not the first time that Seto had seen Jou cry, but it was rare.  
  


"How could she be that stupid?! How? She could have called me! She could have called Ryou, or that nice lady who lived next to her, or- Aargh! How could she BE that stupid?!," Jou screamed, punching the arm of the couch.   
  


Harsh sobs wracked Jou's thin body, and Seto threw his arms around Jou's neck impulsively. He sobbed into the brunette's shoulder and Seto began to cry softly as well, for the innocent girl that had been corrupted by two evil spirits of another world.  
  


Eight months passed. Shizuka sat on the bed in the insane asylum that she had been sentenced to spend the rest of her life in, her knees drawn up to her chest. She wore a frilly pink nightgown that she'd had brought from her house, and she was rocking back and forth, looking out the window...and then at the light fixture on the ceiling...the chest of drawers...the pile of necklaces on top of it...back to the light fixture.  
  


She knew today was a special day. Megumi, one of her friends there, had told her why at breakfast that morning, but Shizuka couldn't remember for the life of her. Megumi was a fifteen-year-old who'd been sent to the asylum by her wealthy family who cared more about their reputation than their own daughter; she'd gotten pregnant, the father died in a car accident, and she'd tried to kill herself after the child was born.  
  


(The desert again. That white-haired boy is sitting under the tree, watching, waiting. The tan one is beckoning. Is he inviting me somewhere?)  
  


Shizuka heard three pairs of footsteps, and she perked up immediately. She knew who they were- Jou, Seto, and Mokuba! They came to see her once a week, and they always brought a necklace or a bracelet, even though she didn't know them much at all. Jou always said he was her brother, but she couldn't remember anything other than the asylum.   
  


And the desert.  
  


Shizuka stood up and clapped her hands happily as the three walked in. Jou went over to his little sister and gave her a kiss on the cheek, and Mokuba hugged her. Seto, meanwhile, took a wrapped box out of a bag he'd been carrying, and gave it to Shizuka.  
  


"Happy birthday!," the three young men said at once.  
  


Shizuka's large, slightly vacant eyes brightened. So that was the special occasion. Quickly tearing off the wrapping, she looked inside, and found a pearl necklace.  
  


"Thank you! You're so kind to do this, all of you, and I don't even know you! Thank you so much!," she laughed.  
  


Jou bowed his head so that Shizuka couldn't see the tears that formed in his eyes.  
  


"How old am I?," she asked, smiling.  
  


"Eighteen," Seto answered.  
  


They all sat and talked for a while more, until the hour that they were given for visits was over.  
  


"Bye, Shizuka!," Mokuba said, smiling and waving.  
  


Seto gave her a quick hug. Jou was the last to approach her.  
  


"Happy birthday, baby sis," he whispered, the tears in his brown eyes threatening to spill over.  
  


Shizuka waved goodbye, and sat back down on her bed.  
  


'Link most of your jewelry together,' came a slightly familiar jaded little voice in Shizuka's head.  
  


She looked around, puzzled. There was nobody in there with her, she was sure of that.  
  


'Go on,' the voice insisted.  
  


Shizuka, not knowing any better, began to methodically link her jewelry together. After she had fastened most of her jewelry together, she looked at it, confused.  
  


'Now get the chair,' the voice instructed, 'and move it under the light fixture. Stand on it.'  
  


She did.  
  


'Tie one end of your jewelry rope to the light and the other around your neck,' said the voice.  
  


Shizuka did as she was told. That had been drummed into her head since she was a baby: "Always do what you are told."  
  


'Now jump.'  
  


The chestnut-haired girl obliged. As her breathing stopped and the room grew fainter and fainter, the desert that had grown so familiar to her in her dreams became clearer and clearer.  
  


"Ah, my dear girl. It's a pleasure to welcome you to my world," the tan one, Marik, laughed with his rich, deep voice.  
  


"I'm sure you'll enjoy it here in. . . . What do those humans call it, Marik dear? I forgot," Bakura said, smiling a fanged smile.  
  


"Death? The afterlife? I don't know. All I know is, darling girl, you're never leaving."  
  


But Shizuka was not bothered in the least.   
  


In fact, for the first time in her life, she felt as if she'd been called home.  
  


_____________________________________________________________________________  
  


A/N: Well, there it is. Hope you liked it. Review if you want, flames are laughed at.  



End file.
